


The Sheltered Hollow

by Island_of_Reil



Series: Fidelis [1]
Category: The Eagle of the Ninth - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-17
Updated: 2013-05-17
Packaged: 2017-12-12 04:18:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/807150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Island_of_Reil/pseuds/Island_of_Reil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A moment of pleasure and relief in the flight to Are-Cluta.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sheltered Hollow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alby_mangroves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alby_mangroves/gifts).



> _The storm had broken over them towards midnight, the wild westerly gale swooping at them down the shoulder of the mountains like a wild thing that wanted to destroy them; whipping the waters of the loch into racing white-caps, bringing with it the bitter, hissing rain to drench them through and through. They had passed the greater part of the night crouching with the two frightened mares under a steep overhang of rock, wrapped about with a shrieking turmoil of wind and rain and darkness. Towards dawn the storm had abated a little, and they had pushed on again until long past noon, when they had found a sheltered hollow under the hole of an uprooted pine, knee-hobbled the mares, and crawled under the upreared mass of torn roots, and slept._   
>  _— Chapter 17, "The Wild Hunt"_

I was the first to wake in the darkness. The wind still cried and raged, but its fury was on the wane, and now the rain fell softly all about the hollow where we lay.

Marcus slept yet, but it was no sound sleep. Well I knew by now why he tossed restlessly and why his face, when it was turned to me, was knotted and furrowed.

I touched him gently on the shoulder and his eyes flew open. Without speaking he took in what I had, that it was night and the storm passing, and he began to rise. I cringed for him even before his eyes widened and, with teeth clenched, he sank back down beside me. I could not see it in the dark, even with night-vision, but I knew his face must be stark white.

"Let me see to your leg," I said quietly. An order, not a plea. He had learned to follow my lead; he made no resistance as I undid the laces of his braccae and slid them down to his knees. The hollow, a bit wider than both of us lying side-by-side on our backs and a bit longer than I am tall, gave me sufficient space to ease myself downward so that I might tend to Marcus.

Hours in the storm had sluiced the worst of it from us, but we were far from clean. After so many days it mattered little to our noses and skins, especially with the goad of fear set into our flanks, and never enough food nor sleep. Yet I now wished we had a small, sun-warmed pool to wash in, and the time for it. Perhaps Marcus wished for a proper Roman bath; to me that seemed as unreal as a hypocaust under a mountain pool.

It was too dark in the hollow to see Marcus's left thigh under my fingers, but I was certain they left dark streaks upon his olive skin as I pressed and kneaded the taut, exhausted muscles under the smooth fading scars. His features twisted in agony and the effort not to cry out. Soon, though, they slackened, his closed eyes pressing their heavy lashes into the deep hollows under his eyes.

A comparison came unbidden to my mind, kindling a flame that seared deep and low in my belly. It was far from the first time I had considered Marcus Flavius Aquila in that manner, but that the need could surface amid others so much more urgent was, by turns, an irritant, an amusement, and a wonder.

I pushed it away and continued to work at his leg, but it became difficult to ignore that I was not the only one beset with that need. I said nothing, letting his growing hardness remain at the edge of my vision, pointedly not looking at his face. Almost certainly it was nothing but how a man's body reacts to such an intimate touch, especially when he has been with no-one for a long while, and with violent death breathing down his neck at that.

I was nearly done with the task; I knew it, he knew it. Part of me wondered whether I should simply continue to massage his thigh until he pulled away from me, or rise with some murmur of reassurance and tend to the mares.

He solved the dilemma by speaking my name. I lifted my head to see his eyes, the only soft things in that sharp-carven face, regarding me with longing — and registering the same in my own.

"We should move on," I said quietly and without conviction.

"Esca," he said again. A plea, not an order.

I took a deep breath and moved upward to stretch out beside him once more, and I pulled his hard, wiry frame against me. His mouth tasted foul, but, then again, so must have mine; and after a moment it did not matter. My hands were in his matted hair, his round my shoulders, and we ground against each other like flint and steel. 

Before long there was no thought in my head of pushing ahead toward Are-Cluta, or of the smoked meat in our travel-bags — only of this need, mine and his. I honestly did not care if I spent in my braccae; I cared only that I spent at his touch, or even just the feel of his body through the fabric, and that Marcus spent somehow, too.

But I was not to spend that way: Now it was his hands at the laces of my braccae. He pushed them just far down enough to bare me, and then my cock was pulsing against his palm, within his closed fingers. I groaned against his mouth, and his breath quickened further.

His hand loosed from me, and suddenly there was hot, smooth, hard flesh against my own, and his spit-slickened grip now round both our cocks. The intimacy of it jarred me with a deep shudder. I had had many hard lessons in taking pain without crying out; pleasure was another thing, and I was glad of Marcus's lips hard against my own again, penning the high, desperate sound back into my throat.

I clung to him as he found a rhythm: down to the hilts, where his grip tightened; up to the crowns, over which he swiped a moist thumb-tip. Each swipe robbed me a little more of the ability to think or speak clearly. When he broke the rhythm to find the little ridge of flesh beneath, I muffled another cry against his mouth, and I felt the shaking, soaring feeling begin to take me.

"Marcus—" I choked on the next words, but he knew. It was his turn to groan, softly, and his hand worked more and more frenetically round us, tightening harder, almost to the point of pain. I pressed my face into his temple as I thrust wildly, within his grasp and against his body. Without any thought on my part, my teeth closed round the lobe of his ear. He did not seem to register the pain; he was spilling, and so was I, as if the seed boiled with the flame he'd earlier set in me.

Both his arms wound round me as our trembling eased; we kissed gently now, panting between, and we grew soft again.

His ironic voice was barely above a whisper. "Did you mean to clip my ear, too, _domine_?"

I could well enough suppress laughter; that had been another hard series of lessons. "No, I did not. If you wish, I can try for that the next time."

 _The next time._ I stiffened slightly at my own bold words, but Marcus returned nothing but his own quiet laughter and a tightening of his embrace.

There was a bit of stillness between us, and then eventually he spoke again, with a hint of regret. 

"We must go."

"Aye," I said, with the same, and I reached down to tug up my braccae again. I could feel, more than see, his mouth quirk with distaste at the stickiness, but — with no washing-water nor time to wash, and nothing about us but the dirt of the hollow — there was little point in trying to remedy it now.

"By the time we stop to rest again," I said, "perhaps the damned rain will have cleansed us of it."

He gave a snort, and began to rise on his elbows; I helped him to his feet. He evinced no sign of pain this time, and I felt a lightening in my chest.

Rested and drained of lust, we were ravenous, and between us we made short work of what smoked meat remained. Then I freed the mares of their hobbles, and we swung ourselves up upon them again.

Marcus, ahead of me on Vipsania, looked backward briefly. He was filthy, the steady rain plastered his hair to his head, but his eyes looked brighter than I had seen since we realised the loss of the ring-brooch, and a faint smile played about his lips.

"Are-Cluta?"

"Are-Cluta," I said, smiling too, and set my heels into Minna's flanks.


End file.
